Play date: September 30, 2017
In-game date: April 13 or so, EY219
Location: The planet in the slide points
Previous events: Crash landing on this awful place
Volkova's damage report:
Ablative armour has ablated, as it should, to protect us.
The advanced sensor suite has ablated, as it should, to protect us.
The atmospheric engines have basically melted, as they should not have, and they have not protected us but instead done the opposite. I want to ask them why they have done this when I have treated them so well, but they cannot answer. We should be wary of this atmosphere, I think.
Poor, poor Steel Hummingbird. She's in pretty bad shape and with the atmospheric engines nonfunctional they're stuck here until Volkova can get them fixed. A preliminary reading shows that the atmosphere here is full of a bizarre and extremely lethal mix of hydrocarbons with basically no oxygen. Definitely lethal to unprotected humans -- and Bishop unnecessarily chucks a large grub outside the ship to prove this -- but it shouldn't be a danger to the EVA suits or the ship's structure over any reasonable time, assuming that they're not stuck here for months.
Looking out the portholes it's obvious that they're far from the first vehicle to crash here: the entire landscape is made up of ships and parts thereof. Maybe the entire planet is covered with wrecks? Or maybe the entire planet is made of debris? Given the magnetic field and gravity here a planet made entirely out of debris kind of makes sense...
Things are currently looking a bit calmer after the crash, so a team is chosen to head outside: Bishop, Choi, Malcolm, and Volkova. No one else has the EVA skills with the exception of Jillian, who decides to stay so she can keep an eye on sensors and run comms. The first goal is to see what state the atmospheric engines are in, the second to see if any of the ships that litter the planet have parts that can be scavenged.
It's obvious that the atmospheric engines are a total write-off: there's nothing in the melted mass that can be rebuilt. Volkova guesses that the toxic air here reacted in a very exothermic way with the oxygen in the fuel mix and the result was their crash. Thinking about it for a minute Volkova and Choi come to the conclusion that they'll either have to build a new engine from found parts and filter the input or they can build a rocket: given the atmosphere here all they'd have to do is provide the oxygen and they should be able to take off, using the atmosphere as fuel.
While they've been looking at the state of the ship Bishop and Malcolm have been scanning through the hazy, yellow-brown atmosphere looking for a ship that looks lootable. If this is a sort of space graveyard then some of it should be in reasonable shape. Maybe there are even other survivors. They've spotted one that looks pretty intact and the four of them tromp over to it, which takes a while. The high gravity slows Bishop and Choi quite a lot, but Malcolm and Volkova are strong enough to march at normal speed. Everyone has to be careful not to cut themselves on various metal and ceramic shards; there might not be much in the way of topological relief here but the terrain is very broken and uneven.
The ship is relatively small, about the size of a large fighter plane, and Choi manages to get the iris door to open without much trouble. There are no bodies inside it and it looks like whatever flew this ship was somewhat larger than a human. There isn't too much to scavenge, but in the end they come out with some parts that can be used for the atmospheric engine, hull brackets of some unknown alloy that look like they'd reinforce the structure of a ship this size, and some fabric-like material from what looks like the life support system that could probably do a good job of filtering air. It doesn't take more than an hour to strip the ship of what they can. No traps, no injuries.
That was easier than they'd feared. They tromp back to the Hummingbird and drop off their newfound gear. It's been a promising first foray! Bishop notices that his crewmembers who were outside with the maelstrom of the slide point overhead are acting a little strange from being so exposed and he treats them using his knowledge of the Dreaming. It's harder for him to reach into the Dreaming here, he realizes. Linking with an individual is fine, but the larger aspect of the Dreamscape feels very far away.
The gravity has worn most everyone down but Choi and Volkova want to get going and do more exploring. Jillian stays on sensors and Malcolm opts to stay in the ship and run the comms to the two wanderers.
Outside, Choi is almost manic in this treasure-filled environment and she rushes as best she's able in the oppressive gravity. Volkova tells her to slow down and it's only when Choi slips and almost tears her suit that she listens to Volkova's shouting and calms down a bit.
Volkova's reaming out of Choi comes to an abrupt end when Jillian informs them over comms (through Malcolm) that she's detected movement out there near them! Volkova unslings her grenade launcher and plugs a round into it, then she and Choi head towards the contact. Volkova pulls away from the slower Choi and that's probably for the best: Volkova would rather get into a fight without someone so fragile to protect.
Creeping along Volkova catches up with the creature not far at all from the Hummingbird. It's roughly human sized and walking on all four of its limbs, wearing clothing that looks like an EVA suit. Whatever it is, it looks like it doesn't like the gravity here any more than her weaker crewmates do. When the creature stops, it pulls out a device of some sort and Jillian notices on her panel that her ship is being scanned with a weak sensor. She turns a spotlight on the creature and it shuffles away as quickly as it can.
Volkova opts not to follow it on her own and -- barely -- convinces the loot-happy Choi to enter the Hummingbird. The xenotechnologist is great with alien tech but would just be a liability in a dangerous situation. Malcolm quickly suits up, grabs his weapons and joins Volkova outside. Jillian orders them to only use lethal force if they need to. She'd rather not have the first encounter with a new species lead to deaths if it doesn't have to.
The two of them follow a path back the way that the alien was heading in and after maybe an hour they climb up a ridge and come across a ship roughly the same size as theirs partially hidden in an ancient crater -- whatever ship originally made this hole in the ground was obviously large and crashed at high speed. The alien they've been following has barely made it here ahead of them and peering over the rim they see it stagger into the ship, obviously tired from the gravity. There are seven more of the creatures visible in the crater.
The ship can quite likely hear their comms and so after a short message back (which both relays what they've seen and gives the Hummingbird their location) Malcolm and Volkova opt to keep quiet while they figure out what's going on. She finds a good spot behind some debris where she can keep an eye on the aliens and he heads back to take up a spot roughly halfway between the alien ship and his own in case something heads that way, hunkering down behind a small pile of twisted wreckage.
While they are getting into position Bishop, up in the cannon's cupola, attempts to communicate with the aliens, but gets no response. He's been listening to their brief bursts of communications and the best he can figure out is that they're cautious and curious, but nothing more.
After not long at all four small tracked vehicles roll out from the larger ship. They're about the size of a van and two of them take up what look like defensive positions just inside the rim while the two others trundle off towards the Hummingbird. Volkova slips down outside of the crater to put as much material between her and the ship and sends a message back to the Hummingbird telling them about this new development. She then finds a new hiding place, and it's a good thing she does: six aliens seem to have heard her communication and start to walk about, looking for her, the other heading back into the ship.
Malcom hears the vehicles coming his way and skootches down lower in his hiding place. He's not sure if they're going to see him and doesn't have much faith in his location to shield him from view, so he fires a flare from his Blingmaster off to the side: the delay on the flare's ignition lets it be some ways away from him before igniting and the aliens veer off to examine the light before realizing it wasn't anything worth their time and continue towards the Hummingbird. With this atmosphere and all the wreckage it's probable that there are occasional flares when some oxygen leaks from a damaged ship under the surface. Luckily, the alien vehicles don't notice him as they continue past. They don't look very impressive, with no obviously thick armour nor any impressive armament. Then again, the beam weapons of the Iof don't look like much when they're not firing, so he can't be sure of what they're packing.
Once they're past Malcolm hustles over to Volkova. It takes almost half an hour, but the vehicles aren't going very quickly -- the terrain is so broken that smaller vehicles don't move much faster than he does. She's hiding from anything looking from the inside of the crater but is plainly visible to someone coming from outside of it, and the two update each other by pressing their helmets to each other and shouting rather than risking comms. He readies his assault rifle and Volkova upgrades to her bazooka: he can cover her while she prepares to fire on the large ship if necessary.
On the Hummingbird Jillian notices that the smaller tracked vehicles are emitting radar frequencies at her ship. Scanning? Trying to communicate? She suddenly realizes that what they're doing is likely rangefinding...
Back at the crater, Malcolm and Volkova note that the ship has opened a hatch on top, perhaps to release a flyer? No, it's obvious that's not the case when a heretofore hidden cannon lurches up into sight and fires! It looks like it's firing like a mortar to angle the shot out of the crater while staying in the crater so that other ships can't fire their cannons easily at it. Volkova opens her comms to tell the Hummingbird that fire is incoming and hurriedly aims her bazooka at the ship.
As soon as Jillian realizes what the vehicles are doing they get the call from Volkova and Bishop gives up on a peaceful end to this and fires a round from the cannon at one of the ground vehicles, wrecking it. An instant later the round fired from the ship in the crater lands on the Hummingbird, which buckles under the impact. The shot punches through the upper hull and top level, continuing through to blow out most of the engineering deck. There's no time to work out what the damage is or if there are any casualties.
Not knowing what sort of armour the ship itself has Volkova fires at the cannon on top of the stationary ship to at least save her ship and her aim is true: she blows the cannon off the top of the alien ship and there's a huge explosion and gout of flame as unspent rounds and released oxygen react with the atmosphere. While she's occupied with the ship Malcolm shoots the closest alien in the head and it slumps down on the inner rim of the crater.
The second vehicle tries to run from the Hummingbird but there's no way that it can get away from Bishop's cannon and his shot punches right through it. While he's doing that Jillian quickly works out a trajectory to hit the alien ship: she knows that it's in a crater and that indirect fire is needed, and also knows where it is from Volkova's communication and the explosions of it's cannon, both from firing and from being destroyed. She does have some difficulty in making the last of these readings, indicating that the sensors have been damaged in the hit they took, but does relay what she thinks is a very accurate set of coordinates to Bishop, taking the planet's gravity into account. He fires, hoping for the best.
At the edge of the crater Volkova reloads while Malcolm continues to fire on the aliens. He badly wounds one, but it looks like they're as vulnerable to the toxic atmosphere here as he is and it flails for a bit before lying still. The aliens fire back, both from their vehicles and from weapons mounted on the backs of the ones on foot. The humans have found a good place to fire from, though, and none of the shots connect. It looks like they're firing small projective weapons and even the vehicles don't have weaponry any better than the ground troops, but they'll be able to flank their targets soon...
While the aliens move in on Malcolm and Volkova Bishop's shot sails in and it's dead on target. His round lands in the hole Volkova made and the entire ship blows apart from the inside! The fireball and flying debris injure or kill some of the aliens in the crater and the rest of them panic at their base being destroyed. Malcolm and Volkova take advantage of their disarray and Volkova destroys both vehicles with her bazooka while Malcolm continues to shoot the troops. In less than a minute there's only one alien left, running away from the two murderous humans. It's quickly decided to take it prisoner and Volkova runs it down, beating it into submission with her beloved Khnuta. Now they have a prisoner.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 1, somehow (running total: 33)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 5.5)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 16)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 7)